We live in an environment that is full of chemicals – some which are bad for us and yet are completely natural. We don’t subscribe to the notion that man-made is absolutely bad and natural is absolutely good – botulism is completely natural and can kill you just as dead. But sometimes we adopt products for our use in ways that can hurt us, because we don’t pay attention to the chemicals that are contained in that product nor of how we use the product. Recently, the crushed up tires that are appearing in playgrounds and as the playfield surface of schools around the country have become an object of concern, so let’s take a look at those.

Discarded rubber tires are the bane of waste management – according to the EPA, we generate 290 million scrap tires each year.[1] Obviously finding a market for these slow-to-decompose materials is desirable, and many innovative uses have been developed, including using ground up tires on playground and sports field surfaces. According to the Synthetic Turf Council, this “crumb rubber has been installed in approximately 11,000 U.S. fields, tracks and playgrounds in the United States.[2] And the California Office of Environmental Health says that recycled rubber tires have become one of the top choice materials for surfacing children’s playgrounds.[3]

Crumb rubber is a black, pellet-like substance the size of a cracker crumb. Run your hand through the field, and you’ll pick up black dust, similar to the consistency of pencil graphite. It’s easy to spread, and can easily get into your mouth, shoes, clothing and nostrils. Routes of exposure, especially in the case of infants, can include dermal absorption, inhalation, and even ingestion directly from the material.

Here’s a story about crumb rubber from NBC news:

Various studies have identified the chemicals found in tires, which are made of 40-60% rubber polymers, carbon black (20-35%), silicas, process and extender oils (up to 28%), vulcanization chemicals and chemical anti-degradents, and plasticizers and softeners. It is well known that rubber tire debris contains toxic compounds such as highly aromatic oils and other reactive additives.[1]

The EPA has identified a number of compounds which may be found in tires, though they’re quick to point out that not all are contained in every tire:[2]

heavy metals ( cadmium, chromium, iron, lead, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, selenium, sulfur, and zinc, which can be as much as 2% of tire mass) – most of which have documented health consequences including damage to the central nervous system.

Plasticizers (such as phthalates)- phthalates act as estrogens once absorbed by the body. They are considered endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDC’s); conditions associated with EDC’s include infertility; breast, prostate and ovarian cancers; asthma; and allergies.[3]

Styrene butadiene – associated with risk of leukemia[4]; known to be genotoxic[5]

Benzene – known to be a human carcinogen; also impacts the nervous and immune systems[6]

Methyl ethyl ketone and methyl isobutyl ketone – there is no evidence of carcinogenicy or mutagenicy but studies show impairment of central nervous system; both are on the Hazardous Substances List by OSHA.[8]

Another concern is the smell that wafts up from the playing field – like old tires – coupled with the fact that the fields often are 10 – 15 degrees warmer than the ambient temperature, and many of the compounds evaporate at temperatures as low as 77 degrees F. Compounds found to be present in the air in a study done by the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station include: [10]

Benzothiazole: A skin and eye irritation, harmful if swallowed. There is no available data on cancer, mutagenic toxicity, teratogenic toxicity, or developmental toxicity.

n-hexadecane: A severe irritant based on human and animal studies. There is no available data on cancer, mutagenic toxicity, teratogenic toxicity, or developmental toxicity.

4-(t-octyl) phenol: Corrosive and destructive to mucous membranes. There is no available data on cancer, mutagenic toxicity, teratogenic toxicity, or developmental toxicity.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs): heavy occupational exposure leads to risk of lung, skin or bladder cancers; genotoxic, leading to malignancies and heritable genetic damage in humans. [11] In 2010, the EPA concluded that in the case of PAHs, “breathing PAHs and skin contact seem to be associated with cancer in humans.”[12] The total concentration of PAHs in crumb rubber exceedes the Norwegian Pollution Control Authority’s normative values for most sensitive land use.[13]

A 2012 study analyzing rubber mulch taken from children’s playgrounds in Spain found harmful chemicals present in all, frequently at high levels.[14] Twenty-one samples were collected from 9 playgrounds in urban locations and screened for various pollutants. The results showed that all samples contained at least one hazardous chemical, with most containing multiple PAHs found at high concentrations. The authors concluded that the use of rubber recycled tires on playgrounds “should be restricted or even prohibited in some cases.”[15]

Many, if not most, of the compounds present in tire crumbs and shreds have been incompletely tested for human health effects, so there is no data available to evaluate the chemicals (as evidenced by the four compounds above).

Artificial turf and rubber crumb manufacturers point to the fact that no research has linked cancer to artificial turf – yet most studies add the caveat that more research should be conducted.

According to Dr. Joel Forman, associate professor of pediatrics and preventive medicine at New York’s Mt. Sinai Hospital, in all these studies, data gaps make it difficult to draw firm conclusions. As he says, “None of [the studies] are long term, they rarely involve very young children and they only look for concentrations of chemicals and compare it to some sort of standard for what’s considered acceptable,” said Dr. Forman. “That doesn’t really take into account subclinical effects, long-term effects, the developing brain and developing kids.” Forman said that it is known that some of the compounds found in tires, “even in chronic lower exposures” can be associated with subtle neurodevelopmental issues in children.

“If you never study anything,” said Dr. Forman, “you can always say, ‘Well there’s no evidence that shows you have a problem,’ but that’s because you haven’t looked. To look is hard.”

Another notable critic of the stuff is Dr. Phillip Landrigan of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, who submitted a letter to the New York City Planning Department last year expressing concerns over the carcinogens in tire crumbs.

He wrote that the principal chemical components of crumb rubber are Styrene and Butadiene — Styrene is neurotoxic, and Butadiene is a proven human carcinogen that has been shown to cause leukemia and lymphoma.

“There is a potential for all of these toxins to be inhaled, absorbed through the skin and even swallowed by children who play on synthetic turf fields,” Dr. Landrigan wrote. “Only a few studies have been done to evaluate this type of exposure risk.”

So if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck…

And as if to add insult to injury, wood chips were found to do a better job of protecting children from head trauma![16]

Remember that children are much more likely to be harmed by exposure to chemicals in their environment than adults because they’re smaller (therefore exposure is greater) and their bodies are still developing. So what’s a concerned parent to do?

First – ignore the tire crumb playgrounds and find a good old wood chip or grass site.

Teach your children the importance of frequent hand washing as many chemicals enter bodies via the mouth.

And persuade local officials to use wood chips rather than recycled rubber.

We received a comment on one of our blog posts recently in which the reader chastised us for exaggerating issues which they believe are disproportionate to the facts. In their words: For instance formaldehyde… is a volatile chemical…no doubt it is used in the textile industry a great deal…but looking for this chemical in end products is an example chasing a ghost…. It has to be put in perspective. I do not know of any citation that a human developed cancer because they wore durable press finished clothing.

Please follow along as I itemize the reasons that we don’t feel the issues are exaggerated.

Textiles are full of chemicals. The chemicals found in fabrics have been deemed to be, even by conservative organizations such as the Swedish government, simply doing us no good – and even harming us in ways ranging from subtle to profound. But fabrics are just one of the many stressors that people face during the day: these stressors (i.e., chemicals of concern) are in our food, our cosmetics, our electronics, our cleaning products, in dust in our houses and pollution from automobile exhaust in our air. This is not even close to an exhaustive list of the products containing the kinds of chemical stressors we face each day. And this is a new thing – it wasn’t until around the middle of the last century that these synthetic chemicals became so ubiquitous. Remember “better living through chemistry”? And if you don’t know the history of such events as Minamata, or about places like Dzershinsk, Russia or Hazaribagh, Bangladesh, then do some homework to get up to speed.

Add to that the fact that new research is being done which is profoundly changing our old belief systems. For example, we used to think that a little dose of a poison would do a little bit of harm, and a big dose would do a lot of harm (i.e., “the dose makes the poison”) – because water can kill you just as surely as arsenic, given sufficient quantity. The new paradigm shows that exposure to even tiny amounts of chemicals (in the parts-per-trillion range) can have significant impacts on our health – in fact some chemcials impact the body profoundly in the parts per trillion range, but do little harm at much greater dosages. The old belief system did not address how chemicals can change the subtle organization of the brain. Now, according to Dr. Laura Vandenberg of the Tufts University Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology [1] “we found chemicals that are working at that really low level, which can take a brain that’s in a girl animal and make it look like a brain from a boy animal, so, really subtle changes that have really important effects.”

In making a risk assessment of any chemical, we now also know that timing and order of exposure is critical – exposures can happen all at once, or one after the other, and that can make a world of difference. And we also know another thing: mixtures of chemicals can make each other more toxic. For example: a dose of mercury that would kill 1 out of 100 rats, when combined with a dose of lead that would kill 1 out of 1000 rats – kills every rat exposed.

And finally, the new science called “epigenetics” is finding that pollutants and chemicals might be altering the 20,000-25,000 genes we’re born with—not by mutating or killing them, but by sending subtle signals that silence them or switch them on at the wrong times. This can set the stage for diseases which can be passed down for generations. So exposure to chemicals can alter genetic expression, not only in your children, but in your children’s children – and their children too. Researchers at Washington State University found that when pregnant rats were exposed to permethrin, DEET or any of a number of industrial chemicals, the mother rats’ great granddaughters had higher risk of early puberty and malfunctioning ovaries — even though those subsequent generations had not been exposed to the chemical. [2] Another recent study has shown that men who started smoking before puberty caused their sons to have significantly higher rates of obesity. And obesity is just the tip of the iceberg—many researchers believe that epigenetics holds the key to understanding cancer, Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, autism, and diabetes. Other studies are being published which corroborate these findings.[3]

So that’s the thing: we’re exposed to chemicals all day, every day – heavy metals and carcinogenic particles in air pollution; industrial solvents, household detergents, Prozac (and a host of other pharmaceuticals) and radioactive wastes in drinking water; pesticides in flea collars; artificial growth hormones in beef, arsenic in chicken; synthetic hormones in bottles, teething rings and medical devices; formaldehyde in cribs and nail polish, and even rocket fuel in lettuce. Pacifiers are now manufactured with nanoparticles from silver, to be sold as ‘antibacterial.’ These exposures all add up – and the body can flush out some of these chemicals, while it cannot excrete others. Chlorinated pesticides, such as DDT, for example, can remain in the body for 50 years. Scientists call the chemicals in our body our “body burden”. Everyone alive carries within their body at least 700 contaminants.[4]

This cumulative exposure could mean that at some point your body reaches a tipping point and, like falling dominoes, the stage is set for something disastrous happening to your health.

I am especially concerned because these manufactured chemicals – not just the elements which have been with us forever but those synthetic combinations – have not been tested, so we don’t really have a clue what they’re doing to us.

But back to our main argument:

The generations born from 1970 on are the first to be raised in a truly toxified world. Probably one in three of the children you know suffers from a chronic illness – based on the finding of many studies on children’s health issues.[5] It could be cancer, or birth defects – perhaps asthma, or a problem that affects the child’s mind and behavior, such as a learning disorder, ADHD or autism or even a peanut allergy. We do know, for example:

Childhood cancer, once a medical rarity, is the second leading cause of death (following accidents) in children aged 5 to 14 years.[6]

According to the American Academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology, for the period 2008-2010, asthma prevalence was higher among children than adults – and asthma rates for both continue to grow. [7]

Autism rates without a doubt have increased at least 200 percent.

Miscarriages and premature births are also on the rise,

while the ratio of male to female babies dwindles and

teenage girls face endometriosis.

Dr. Warren Porter delivered a talk at the 25th National Pesticide Forum in 2007, in which he explained that a lawn chemical used across the country, 2,4-D, mecoprop and dicambra was tested to see if it would change or alter the capacity of mice to keep fetuses in utero. The test found that the lowest dosage of this chemical had the greatest effect – a common endocrine response.[8]

Illness does not necessarily show up in childhood. Environmental exposures, from conception to early life, can set a person’s cellular code for life and can cause disease at any time, through old age. And the new science of epigenetics is showing us that these exposures can impact not only us, but our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Let’s look at the formaldehyde which our reader mentioned. Formaldehyde is one of many chemical stressors – and it is used in fabrics as finishes to prevent stains and wrinkles (for example, most cotton/poly sheet sets found in the US have a formaldehyde finish), but it’s also used as a binding agent in printing inks, for the hardening of casein fibers, as a wool protection , and for its anti-mold properties.

Formaldehyde is a listed human carcinogen. Besides being associated with watery eyes, burning sensations in the eyes and throat, nausea, difficulty in breathing, coughing, some pulmonary edema (fluid in the lungs), asthma attacks, chest tightness, headaches, and general fatigue, as well as well documented skin rashes, formaldehyde is associated with more severe health issues: For example, it could cause nervous system damage by its known ability to react with and form cross-linking with proteins, DNA and unsaturated fatty acids. These same mechanisms could cause damage to virtually any cell in the body, since all cells contain these substances. Formaldehyde can react with the nerve protein (neuroamines) and nerve transmitters (e.g., catecholamines), which could impair normal nervous system function and cause endocrine disruption.[9]

Formaldehyde in clothing is not regulated in the United States, but 13 countries do have laws that regulate the amount of formaldehyde allowed in clothing. Greenpeace tested a series of Disney clothing articles and found from 23ppm – 1,100 ppm of formaldehyde in 8 of the 16 products tested. In 2008, more than 600 people joined a class action suit against Victoria’s Secret, claiming horrific skin reactions (and permanent scarring for some) as a result of wearing Victoria Secret’s bras. Lawsuits were filed in Florida and New York – after the lawyers found formaldehyde in the bras. Then in January 2009, new blue uniforms issued to Transportation Security Administration officers, gave them skin rashes, bloody noses, lightheadedness, red eyes, and swollen and cracked lips, according to the American Federation of Government Employees, the union representing the officers – because of the formaldehyde in the uniforms.[10]

Studies have been done which link formaldehyde in indoor air as a risk factor for childhood asthma[11]. Rates of formaldehyde in indoor air have grown from 0.014 ppm in 1980 to 0.2 ppm in 2010 – and these rates are increasing.

Studies have also been found which link formaldehyde to a variety of ailments in textile workers, specifically: Besides being a well known irritant of the eyes, nose and upper and lower airways, as well as being a cause of occupational asthma[12], a number of studies have linked formaldehyde exposure with the development of lung and nasopharyngeal cancers[13] and with myeloid leukemia. [14] A cohort study by The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health found a link in textile workers between length of exposure to formaldehyde and leukemia deaths.[15] By the way, OSHA has established a Federal standard what restricts the amount of formaldehyde that a worker can be exposed to over an 8 hour workday – currently that’s 0.75 ppm.

That means if you have 0.2 ppm of formaldehyde in your indoor air, and your baby is wearing the Disney Finding Nemo t-shirt which registered as 1,100 ppm – what do you think the formaldehyde is doing to your baby?

So our argument is not that any one piece of clothing can necessarily do irreparable harm to somebody – but if that piece of clothing contains a chemical (pick any one of a number of chemicals) that is part of what scientists call our “body burden”, then it just might be the thing that pushes you over the edge. And if you can find products that do not contain the chemicals of concern, why would you not use them, given the risk of not doing so?

We have all heard the stories of our “growing obesity epidemic” – especially in western nations. It’s an important national problem, and is partly responsible for our soaring health care costs. We often point to obesity as being caused by overeating, fast food, and/or sedentary lifestyles for those having a genetic predisposition to the disease. But the rates of obesity have escalated in such an exponential manner that the commonly held causes of obesity – overeating and inactivity – cannot explain the current obesity epidemic. A growing number of studies have suggested a new culprit: environmental rather than genetic causes.

Our world is different than it was 100 years ago. We have developed many synthetic organic and inorganic chemicals to make our lives easier – and used them in a fabulously wide range of products. In fact, you could say, as some do, that we’re living in a toxic soup of these chemicals. And those chemicals are changing us. Some of the chemicals changing us are called “endocrine disruptors” (which we discussed in last week’s post) since they interfere with the body’s hormone balance, which confuses the body. Initially, they caused concern because of their links to cancers and the malformation of sex organs. Those concerns continue, but the newest area of research is the impact that they have on fat storage.

It has been found that the developing organism (us!) is extremely sensitive to chemicals with estrogenic or endocrine disrupting activity and that exposure to these chemicals during critical stages of development may have permanent long-lasting consequences, some of which may not be expressed or detected until later in life.(1)

But back to obesity, which is what we’re concentrating on this week. (I know it’s difficult to stay on task, because these chemicals are synergistic, have multi-dimensional effects and often degrade into different substances altogether).

Nicholas Kristof, writing in the New York Times last weekend, talked about the results of a study which I found disturbing. Look at these two mice:

The only difference between these mice: The one at the top was exposed at birth to a tiny amount of an endocrine-disrupting chemical. New York Times

According to Kristof, “they’re genetically the same, raised in the same lab and given the same food and chance to exercise. Yet the bottom one is svelte, while the other looks like, well, an American. The only difference is that the top one was exposed at birth to just one part per billion of an endocrine-disrupting chemical (2) . The brief exposure programmed the mouse to put on fat, and although there were no significant differences in caloric intake or expenditure, it continued to put on flab long after the chemical was gone.”

Bruce Blumberg, a developmental biologist at the University of California, Irvine, coined the term “obesogen” in a 2006 journal article to refer to chemicals that cause animals to store fat. Initially, this concept was highly controversial among obesity experts, but a growing number of peer-reviewed studies have confirmed his finding and identified some 20 substances as obesogens.

Manufacturers have already exploited obesogens by using them to fatten livestock, and by formulating pharmaceuticals to induce weight gain in grossly underweight patients. A study by Dr. Baillie-Hamilton presents the hypothesis that the current level of human exposure to these chemicals may have damaged many of the body’s natural weight-control mechanisms and that these effects, together with a wide range of additional, possibly synergistic, factors may play a significant role in the worldwide obesity epidemic.(3) And these changes continue generation after generation. It’s clear that the most important time for exposure is in utero and during childhood.(4)

The magazine Scientific American recently asked whether doctors should do more to warn pregnant women about certain chemicals.(5) It cited a survey indicating that only 19% of doctors cautioned pregnant women about pesticides, only 8% about BPA (an endocrine disruptor in some plastics and receipts), and only 5% about phthalates (endocrine disruptors found in cosmetics and shampoos). Dr. Blumberg, the pioneer of the field, says he strongly recommends that people — especially children and women who are pregnant or may become pregnant — try to eat organic foods to reduce exposure to endocrine disruptors, and try to avoid using plastics to store food or water. “My daughter uses a stainless steel water bottle, and so do I,” he said.

Endocrine disruptors are found in fabrics – Greenpeace did a study of 141 clothing items purchased in 29 different countries from authorized retailers. Endocrine disruptors were found in 89 of the 141 articles tested. According to the report: “Overall, a variety of hazardous chemicals were detected within the broad range of high street fashion textile products analysed. These covered a diverse range of brands and countries of manufacture. These results indicate the ongoing – and in some cases widespread – use of hazardous chemicals in the manufacture of textile products openly marketed to consumers.”

It’s not clear whether most obesogens will do much to make an ordinary adult, even a pregnant woman, fatter (although one has been shown to do so). But what about our children, and their children? How does fabric processing impact my weight, or my child’s weight? Should I avoid certain processing chemicals in my own home?

The government made a tremendous impact on public health when it outlawed lead in gasoline. Now we need to make those same hard choices about doing without some of the things we’ve learned to like but which we know to be impacting our health. Support the Safe Chemicals Act and spread the word. This is too important to ignore.

Ever wonder why you buy those organic foods that cost more? It’s always a bit of sticker shock when you see the organic and conventional side by side. The organic strawberries may taste better, but this economy means we have to pinch every penny. As my husband says, an apple is an apple, so why pay more for one when you can get the other cheaper? It’s not going to do anything to me – at least not today.

Turns out you might want to re-think those – and lots of other – choices you make every day. The President’s Cancer Panel issued a 240-page report in May, 2010, called “Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk: What We Can Do Now”. This year’s report is the first time the panel has emphasized the environmental causes of cancer. It warns of “grievous harm” from chemicals and other hazards, and “a growing body of evidence linking environmental exposures to cancer.” Children are especially vulnerable.

The report is based on testimony from a series of meetings held between September 08 and January 09 which included 45 invited experts from academia, government, industry, the environmental and cancer advocacy communities, and the public. The report urged President Obama to “use the power of your office to remove the carcinogens and other toxins from our food, water, and air that needlessly increase health care costs, cripple our nation’s productivity, and devastate American lives.” Because industrial chemicals are so ubiquitous and exposure to these potential environmental carcinogens so widespread, “the Panel was particularly concerned to find that the true burden of environmentally induced cancers has been grossly underestimated,”

The report said previous estimates that environmental pollutants and occupational exposures cause 6% of all cancers are low and “woefully out of date.” In fact, the National Institutes of Health estimates that environmental factors contribute to 75-80% of all cancers: from tobacco smoke, ultraviolet light, radiation, obesity and certain viruses and sexually-transmitted diseases – in addition to environmental carcinogens.One excerpt reads, “With nearly 80,000 chemicals on the market. … many of which are used by millions of Americans in their daily lives and are. … largely unregulated, exposure to potential environmental carcinogens is widespread.”

The President’s Panel report clearly states that much work has to be done to better characterize environmental determinants of cancer—including better research methods, standardized measurements, and more realistic models that can help estimate the cumulative risks associated with multiple environmental toxins. But scientists have been scrambling for decades for scarce funding – and the work was given a low priority. The fundamental problem is that research into environmental causes of cancer has little potential for yielding profits—at least in the short-term. In fact, it is more likely to cost industry through stronger regulation and removal of products from the market, litigation and the added expense of developing new products based on “green chemistry.” So it’s not a stretch to understand why the government and the pharmaceutical industry would rather spend billions of dollars promoting screening and developing profitable new cancer drugs. Peter Montague, a long-time environmental advocate puts it this way: “To be blunt about it, there’s no money in prevention, and once you’ve got cancer you’ll pay anything to try to stay alive.”

Environmental toxins are rarely considered in health policy initiatives (except for tobacco and sunlight), despite the findings that people who live in polluted areas and work with toxic substances (most often the poor and minorities) have higher rates of cancer incidence. The Cancer Panel pointed out “Cancer Alley“, the stretch along the Mississippi between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, as an example. Louisiana ranked second in the nation for on-site toxic releases, and many studies exist which demonstrate the cancer rate is above the average for the rest of the United States. In one small Louisiana town in Cancer Alley, 3 cases of rhabdomyosarcoma were reported in a 14 month period. Rhabdomyosarcoma is an extremely rare and devastating childhood cancer, with a national average of one child in a million. Five years ago a group of residents of Mossville, Louisiana, filed a human rights complaint against the US government, alleging it was not protecting their right to live in a healthy environment. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights agreed this year to hear their complaint.

In a consensus statement, the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, an international partnership of some 3,000 individuals and organizations, says that the net result of this inadequate funding is a body of research that is in danger of being irrelevant:

“The methods that have been used to attribute cancer risk to environmental exposures are outdated and flawed, and should no longer be used to determine policy or set research priorities.”

So it’s not just organic foods that we should be concerned about, but the whole phalanx of products which are made using harmful chemistry, and the manufacturers that don’t capture emissions or treat their waste products, thereby polluting our entire ecosystem. That’s why O Ecotextiles has made a commitment to sell only fabrics which are safe for both you and the Earth.

I found it interesting that there is a new branch of science that is also studying how these environmental factors can influence us. Called epigenetics, it is the study of changes in gene activity that don’t involve changes to the genetic code but still get passed down to at least one successive generation. These patterns of gene expression are governed by the cellular material — the epigenome — that sits on top of the genome, just outside it (hence the prefix epi-, which means above). It is these epigenetic “marks” that tell your genes to switch on or off, to speak loudly or whisper. It is through epigenetic marks that environmental factors like diet, stress and prenatal nutrition can make an imprint on genes that is passed from one generation to the next.

One could think of the genome as a book of blueprints, laying out a number of options in the form of genes. The epigenome is like the contractor who goes through the book, deciding which options to include in a house. Two different contractors can build radically different houses from the same book of blueprints, in the same way that two organisms with identical DNA can look very different.

This field of study, some believe, might hold the key to understanding how environmental toxins cause serious, and often life-threatening diseases, such as obesity, diabetes and cancer. For quite some time scientists have been trying to determine how exposure to environmental toxins can result in serious disease years or even decades later. Epigenetics may provide the mechanism. An exposure to an environmental toxin at one point in a person’s life (and most critically during gestation) can trigger the epigenome to turn on or turn off a key gene. Years later, because of that epigenetic change, a disease may appear.

“We can no longer argue whether genes or environment has a greater impact on our health and development, because both are inextricably linked,” said Randy Jirtle, Ph.D., a genetics researcher in Duke’s Department of Radiation Oncology. “Each nutrient, each interaction, each experience can manifest itself through biochemical changes that ultimately dictate gene expression, whether at birth or 40 years down the road.”

Exposures to pesticides, toxins and synthetic compounds can give rise to a host of diseases – such as cancer and asthma — whose prevalence has soared in recent decades, says H. Kim Lyerly, M.D., director of the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center. Pesticides encountered in utero might be dormant in the fetus, only to cause cancer ten, 20 or 50 years later, he said.

Even the lowest detectable limits of a chemical can have dire effects on a living organism, added William Schlesinger, Ph.D., Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke. Atrizine is a prime example. Less than one part per billion of this widely used corn herbicide de-masculinizes developing frogs or causes dual male-female genitalia. Yet often the Environmental Protection Agency’s instrumentation doesn’t record such minute levels of chemical exposure, he said.

What does the Cancer Panel suggest we do in the meantime? Here is their list, with a few of additions of our own:

Remove your shoes before entering your home to avoid tracking in toxic chemicals such as pesticides.

Filter tap water.

Use stainless steel, glass or BPA-free plastic water bottles.

Microwave in ceramic or glass instead of plastic containers.

Become aware of what you’re eating: minimize consumption of food grown with pesticides, and meat raised with antibiotics and growth hormone.

Be aware of the products you use, especially those that come in contact with your skin, such as: lotions, cosmetics, wipes, sheets, clothing, hair dyes. Check ingredient labels, look for third party certifications where appropriate.

And finally: use sunscreen, stop smoking and lose weight if necessary.

I just tried to find out more about Project UDesign, a competition sponsored by the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), Cargill, Toray Industries and Century Furniture. The goal is to produce a chair that is both “sustainable and sellable.” It is targeted to be the next “ eco friendly wing chair” on the market, with the goal of educating the industry and consumers on the topic of sustainable furniture design.[1] Century Furniture has pledged to put the winning chair into production.

Since criteria for the chair design is limited to the use of Cargill’s BiOH® polyols soy foam and Toray’s EcoDesign™ Ultrasuede® upholstery fabric we would like to help Project UDesign reach their goal of educating us on sustainable furniture design by explaining why we think these two products cannot be considered a sustainable choice . In fact, by sponsoring this competition and limiting the student’s choices to Cargill’s BiOH® polyols (“soy”) foams and Toray’s EcoDesign™ Ultrasuede® fabrics, it sends absolutely the wrong message to the students and the public about what constitutes an “eco friendly” choice.

So, let’s take a look at these two products to find out why I’m in such a dither:

Beginning with soy foam: the claim that soy foam is a green product is based on two claims:

that it’s made from soybeans, a renewable resource

that it reduces our dependence on fossil fuels by both reducing the amount of fossil fuel needed for the feedstock and by reducing the energy requirements needed to produce the foam.

Are these viable claims?

It’s made from soybeans, a renewable resource: This claim is undeniably true. But what they don’t tell you is that this product, marketed as soy or bio-based, contains very little soy. In fact, it is more accurate to call it ‘polyurethane based foam with a touch of soy added for marketing purposes’. For example, a product marketed as “20% soy based” may sound impressive, but what this typically means is that soy accounts for only 10% of the foam’s total volume. Why? Given that polyurethane foam is made by combining two main ingredients—a polyol and an isocyanate—in 40/60 ratios (40% is the high end for BiOH® polyols used, it can be as low as 5%), “20% soy based” translates to 20% of the polyol portion, or 20% of the 40% of polyols used to make the foam. In this example the product remains 90% polyurethane foam ‘based’ on fossil fuels, 10% ‘based’ on soy. If you go to Starbucks and buy a 20 oz coffee and add 2-3 soy milk/creamers to it, does it become “soy-based” coffee?

It reduces our dependence on fossil fuels: This means that while suppliers may claim that ‘bio foams’ are based on renewable materials such as soy, in reality a whopping 90 to 95%, and sometimes more of the product consists of the same old petro-chemical based brew of toxic chemicals. This is no ‘leap forward in foam technology’. In the graphic below, “B-Component” represents the polyol portion of polyurethane, and the “A-Component” represents the isocyanate portion of the polyurethane:

It is true that the energy needed to produce soy-based foam is, according to Cargill, who manufactures the soy polyol, less that that needed to produce the polyurethane foam. But because the soy based polyols represent only about 10% of the final foam product, the true energy reduction is only about 4.6% rather than 23%, which is what Cargill leads you to believe in their LCA, which can be read here. But hey, that’s still a savings and every little bit helps get us closer to a self sustaining economy and is friendlier to the planet, so this couldn’t be what is fueling my outrage.

The real problem with advertising soy based foam as a new, miracle green product is that the foam, whether soy based or not, remains a ” greenhouse gas-spewing petroleum product and a witches brew of carcinogenic and neurotoxic chemicals”, according to Len Laycock of Upholstery Arts.

My concern with the use of soy is not its carbon footprint but rather the introduction of a whole new universe of concerns such as pesticide use, genetically modifed crops (GMO), appropriation of food stocks and deforestation. Most soy crops are now GMO: according to the USDA, over 91% of all soy crops in the US are now GMO; in 2007, 58.6% of all soybeans worldwide were GMO. If you don’t think that’s a big deal, please read our posts on these issues (9.23.09 and 9.29.09). The debate still rages today. Greenpeace did an expose (“Eating Up The Amazon” ) on what they consider to be a driving force behind Amazon rain forest destruction – Cargill’s race to establish soy plantations in Brazil. You can read the Greenpeace report here, and Cargill’s rejoinder here.

An interesting aside: There is an article featured on CNNMoney.com about the rise of what they call Soylandia – the enormous swath of soy producing lands in Brazil (almost unknown to Americans) which dominates the global soy trade. Sure opened my eyes to some associated soy issues.

In “Killing You Softly” (a white paper by Upholstery Arts), another sinister side of soy based foam marketing is brought to light:

“Pretending to offer ‘soy based’ foam allows these corporations to cloak themselves in a green blanket and masquerade as environmentally responsible corporations when in practice they are not. By highlighting small petroleum savings, they conveniently distract the public from the fact that this product’s manufacture and use continues to threaten human health and poses serious disposal problems. Aside from replacing a small portion of petroleum polyols, the production of polyurethane based foams with soy added continues to rely heavily on ‘the workhorse of the polyurethane foam industry’, cancer-causing toluene diisocyanate (TDI). So it remains ‘business as usual’ for polyurethane manufacturers.

Despite what polyurethane foam and furniture companies imply , soy foam is not biodegradable either. Buried in the footnotes on their website, Cargill quietly acknowledges that, “foams made with BiOH® polyols are not more biodegradable than traditional petroleum-based cushioning”.[2] Those ever so carefully phrased words are an admission that all polyurethane foams, with or without soy added, simply cannot biodegrade. And so they will languish in our garbage dumps, leach into our water, and find their way into the soft tissue of young children, contaminating and compromising life long after their intended use.

The current marketing of polyurethane foam and furniture made with ‘soy foam’ is merely a page out the tobacco industry’s current ‘greenwashing’ play book. Like a subliminal message, the polyurethane foam and furniture industries are using the soothing words and images of the environmental movement to distract people from the known negative health and environmental impacts of polyurethane foam manufacture, use and disposal.

Cigarettes that are organic (pesticide-free), completely biodegradable, and manufactured using renewable tobacco, still cause cancer and countless deaths. Polyurethane foam made with small amounts of soy-derived materials still exposes human beings to toxic, carcinogenic materials, still relies on oil production, and still poisons life.

As Len Laycock says, “While bio-based technologies may offer promise for creating greener, cradle-to-cradle materials, tonight the only people sitting pretty or sleeping well on polyurethane foam that contains soy are the senior executives and shareholders of the companies benefiting from its sale. As for the rest of humankind and all the living things over which we have stewardship, we’ve been soy scammed!”

If you’re still with us, lets turn our attention to Toray’s Ultrasuede, and their green claims.

Toray’s green claim for Ultrasuede is that it is based on new and innovative recycling technology, using their postindustrial polyester scraps, which cuts both energy consumption and CO2 emissions by an average of 80% over the creation of virgin polyesters.

If that is the only advance in terms of environmental stewardship, it falls far short of being considered an enlightened choice, as I’ll list below.

If we look at the two claims made by the company:

Re: energy reduction: If we take Toray’s claim that it takes just 25 MJ of energy[3] to produce 1 KG of Ultrasuede – that’s still far more energy than is needed to produce 1 KG of organic hemp or linen (10 MJ), or cotton (12 MJ) – with none of the benefits provided by organic agriculture.

CO2 emissions are just one of the emissions issues – in addition to CO2, polyester production generates particulates, N2O, hydrocarbons, sulphur oxides and carbon monoxide, acetaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane (also potentially carcinogenic).

But in addition to these claims, the manufacture of this product creates many concerns which the company does not address, such as:

Polyurethane, a component of Ultrasuede®, is the most toxic plastic known next to PVC; its manufacture creates numerous hazardous by-products, including phosgene (used as a lethal gas during WWII), isosyanates (known carcinogens), toluene (teratogenic and embryotoxic) and ozone depleting gases methylene chloride and CFC’s.

Most polyester is produced using antimony as a catalyst. Antimony is a carcinogen, and toxic to the heart, lungs, liver and skin. Long term inhalation causes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. So, recycled – or not – the antimony is still present.

Ethylene glycol (EG) is a raw material used in the production of polyester. In the United States alone, an estimated 1 billion lbs. of spent ethylene glycol is generated each year. The EG distillation process creates 40 million pounds of still bottom sludge. When incinerated, the sludge produces 800,000 lbs of fly ash containing antimony, arsenic and other metals.[4] What does Toray do with its EG sludge?

The major water-borne emissions from polyester production include dissolved solids, acids, iron and ammonia. Does Toray treat its water before release?

And remember, Ultrasuede® is still . . .plastic. Burgeoning evidence about the disastrous consequences of using plastic in our environment continues to mount. A new compilation of peer reviewed articles, representing over 60 scientists from around the world, aims to assess the impact of plastics on the environment and human health [5]and they found:

Chemicals added to plastics are absorbed by human bodies. Some of these compounds have been found to alter hormones or have other potential human health effects.

Synthetics do not decompose: in landfills they release heavy metals, including antimony, and other additives into soil and groundwater. If they are burned for energy, the chemicals are released into the air.

Nor does it take into consideration our alternative choices: that using an organic fiber supports organic agriculture, which may be one of our most underestimated tools in the fight against climate change, because it:

Acts as a carbon sink: new research has shown that what is IN the soil itself (microbes and other soil organisms in healthy soil) is more important in sequestering carbon that what grows ON the soil. And compared to forests, agricultural soils may be a more secure sink for atmospheric carbon, since they are not vulnerable to logging and wildfire. The Rodale Institute Farming Systems Trial (FST) soil carbon data (which covers 30 years) demonstrates that improved global terrestrial stewardship–specifically including regenerative organic agricultural practices–can be the most effective currently available strategy for mitigating CO2 emissions. [6]

eliminates the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) which is an improvement in human health and agrobiodiversity

conserves water (making the soil more friable so rainwater is absorbed better – lessening irrigation requirements and erosion)

ensures sustained biodiversity

Claiming that the reclamation and use of their own internally generated scrap is an action to be applauded may be a bit disingenuous. It is simply the company doing what most companies should do as efficient operations: cut costs by re-using their own scrap. They are creating a market for their otherwise unsaleable scrap polyester from other operations such as the production of polyester film. This is a good step by Toray, but to anoint it as the most sustainable choice or even as a true sustainable choice at all is disingenuous. Indeed we have pointed in prior blog posts that there are many who see giving “recycled polyester” a veneer of environmentalism by calling it a green option is one of the reasons plastic use has soared: plastic use has increased by a factor of 30 since the 1960s while recycling plastic has only increased by a factor of 2. [7]

We cannot condone the use of this synthetic, made from an inherently non-renewable resource, as a green choice for the many reasons given above.

[3] If we take the average energy needed to produce 1 KG of virgin polyester, 125 MJ (data from “Ecological Footprint and Water Analysis of Cotton, Hemp and Polyester”, by Cherrett et al, Stockholm Enviornemnt Institute) , and reduce it by 80% (Toray’s claim), that means it takes 25 MJ to produce 1 KG of Ultrasuede®

Just in case you missed the recent report which was published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine [1], a Canadian study found that women who work with some common synthetic materials could treble their risk of developing breast cancer after menopause. The data included women working in textile factories which produce acrylic fabrics – those women have seven times the risk of developing breast cancer than the normal population, while those working with nylon fibers had double the risk.

I found it interesting that the researchers justified their findings because “synthetic fibers are typically treated with several chemicals, such as flame retardants from the organophosphate family, delustering agents, and dyes, some of which have estrogenic properties and may be carcinogenic.”

These are the same organophosphate flame retardants and dyes that are used across the textile spectrum, and which are found in most textiles that we surround ourselves with each day.

But also let’s look at the fibers themselves. The key ingredient of acrylic fiber is acrylonitrile, (also called vinyl cyanide). It is a carcinogen (brain, lung and bowel cancers) and a mutagen, targeting the central nervous system. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, acrylonitrile enters our bodies through skin absorption, as well as inhalation and ingestion. So could the acrylic fibers in our acrylic fabrics be a contributing factor to these results?

Acrylic fibers are just not terrific to live with anyway. Acrylic manufacturing involves highly toxic substances which require careful storage, handling, and disposal. The polymerization process can result in an explosion if not monitored properly. It also produces toxic fumes. Recent legislation requires that the polymerization process be carried out in a closed environment and that the fumes be cleaned, captured, or otherwise neutralized before discharge to the atmosphere.(2)

Acrylic is not easily recycled nor is it readily biodegradable. Some acrylic plastics are highly flammable and must be protected from sources of combustion.

What about nylon? Well, in a nutshell, the production of nylon includes the precursors benzene (a known human carcinogen) and hydrogen cyanide gas (extremely poisonous); the manufacturing process releases VOCs, nitrogen oxides and ammonia. And finally there is the addition of those organophosphate flame retardants and dyes.

Of course, there are the usual caveats about the study, and those commenting on it said further studies were needed since chance or undetected bias could have played a role in the findings. In addition, according to Reuters, “the scientists said more detailed studies focusing on certain chemicals were now needed to try to establish what role chemical exposure plays in the development of breast cancer.” So this is yet another area in which more research needs to be done. No surprise there.

But in the meantime, did you know that many popular fabrics are made of acrylic fibers? One of the most popular is Sunbrella outdoor fabrics. Sunbrella fabrics have been certified by GreenGuard Children and Schools because the chemicals used in acrylic production are bound in the polymer – in other words, they do not evaporate. So Sunbrella fabrics do not contribute to poor air quality, (you won’t be breathing them in), but there is no guarantee that you won’t absorb them through your skin. And you would be supporting the production of more acrylic, the production of which is not a pretty thing.

And what about backings on fabrics? Many are made of acrylic. Turn those fabric samples over and see if there is a plastic film on the back – it’s often made of acrylic. Upholsterers like fabrics to be backed because it makes the process much easier and stabilizes the fibers.

So I don’t know about you, but I think I’ll avoid those synthetics for now – at least until we know where we stand.

I got a call awhile ago from Harmony Susalla, founder and chief designer for Harmony Art (if you haven’t seen her glorious fabrics go right now to www.harmonyart.com). She was wondering about optical brighteners, and I discovered I couldn’t tell her much except to say that some are derived from benzene, which is a chemical nobody wants to live with. GOTS allows the use of optical brighteners – with caveats (see below) – but they are supposed to reevaluate them “in two years from date of adoption” of version 2.0, which puts the reevaluation right about now.

So let’s explore optical brighteners, which are used extensively in:

Laundry detergents (to replace whitening agents removed during washing and to make the clothes appear cleaner.) – detergents may contain up to 0.2% whitening agents,

Paper, especially high brightness papers, resulting in their strongly fluorescent appearance under UV illumination. Paper brightness is typically measured at 457nm, well within the fluorescent activity range of brighteners. Paper used for banknotes does not contain optical brighteners, so a common method for detecting counterfeit notes is to check for fluorescence.

Cosmetics: One application is in formulas for washing and conditioning grey or blonde hair, where the brightener can not only increase the luminance and sparkle of the hair, but can also correct dull, yellowish discoloration without darkening the hair). Some advanced face and eye powders contain optical brightener microspheres that brighten shadowed or dark areas of the skin, such as “tired eyes”.

as well as fabrics, which may contain 0.5% OBAs. A side effect of textile optical whitening is to make the treated fabrics more visible with Night Vision Devices than non-treated ones (the fluorescence caused by optical brighteners can easily be seen with an ordinary black light). This may or may not be desirable for military or other applications

You can still buy “bluing” – which is advertised to “whiten whites and brighten colors”. Bluing works by removing yellow light to lessen the yellow tinge. Optical brighteners – also called optical brightening agents (OBAs), fluorescent brightening agents (FBAs), and/or fluorescent whitening agents (FWAs) or “synthetic fluorescent dyes” – work a bit differently. Optical brighteners are chemicals similar to dyes which absorb ultraviolet light and emit it back as visible blue light – in other words, they fluoresce the ultraviolet light into visible light. The blue light emitted by the brightener compensates for the diminished blue of the treated material and changes the hue away from yellow or brown and toward white.

They are designed to mask yellow or brown tones in the fibers and make the fabric look cleaner and brighter than it would otherwise appear to the naked eye. In other words, the undesirable color is made invisible to the eye in an “optical manner”. Optical brighteners are used both on natural fibers (cotton, linen, hemp, silk) as well as in polymer melts for polyester and other synthetic fiber production.

Optical brighteners aren’t effective unless they remain in the fabric, and persist after washing. They only last so long, until the point when they actually burn out and no longer do anything. They are also subject to fading when exposed long term to UV.

Brighteners can be “boosted” by the addition of certain polyols like high molecular weight polyethylene glycol or polyvinyl alcohol. These additives increase the visible blue light emissions significantly. Brighteners can also be “quenched”. Too much use of brightener will often cause a greening effect as emissions start to show above the blue region in the visible spectrum.

Optical brighteners are synthesized from various chemicals. The group of chemicals which are called “optical brighteners” consists of approximately 400 different types listed in the Color Index, but less than 90 are produced commercially. (To get more information about the Color Index click here .)

Basic classes of chemicals used in OBAs include:

Triazine-stilbenes (di-, tetra- or hexa-sulfonated)

Coumarins

Imidazolines

Diazoles

Triazoles

Benzoxazolines

Biphenyl-stilbenes

Using these chemicals, many companies compose their own chemical versions of an optical brightener, and sell it under a branded name, such as:

Blankophar R

Calcofluor

Uvitex

Bluton

CBS

DMS E=416

Kolorcron 2B

To find out what is in the optical brightener in any fabric, you must know the name of the optical brightener, and also the C.I. number (such as Brightener 24 or 220). Then you can look up the chemical composition of the substance – but only if you’re a subscriber to the Color Index database. So it’s pretty difficult to confirm what is actually in an optical brightener.

In exploring some of the chemicals used in formulating optical brighteners, I found one called cyanuric chloride, a derivative of 1,3,5 triazine. Cyanuric chloride is used as a precursor and crosslinking agent in sulfonated triazine-stilbene based optical brighterners. It is also classified as “very toxic”, “harmful” and “corrosive” by the EU and has several risk phrases identified with it – including R26 (“very toxic by inhalation”). R26 is a substance which is specifically prohibited by GOTS. So how can optical brighteners be allowed under GOTS?

The short answer is: some are allowed, some are not – it depends on the chemical composition of each individual optical brightener. Like dyestuffs, GOTS allows optical brighteners if they “meet all criteria for the selection of dyes and auxiliaries as defined in chapter 2.4.6, Dyeing.” Those criteria include the prohibition of all chemicals listed in 2.3.1 and substances which are assigned certain risk phrases “or combinations thereof”. But in order to know if a particular optical brightener meets these criteria, it’s necessary to know the chemical formula for that brightener. And that takes a bit of detective work – and even so you might not be able to get final answers. Don’t you begin to feel like a hamster in one of those wheels going round and round?

What are the problems associated with optical brighteners?
Some brighteners have been proven to cause allergic skin reactions or eye irritation in sensitive people. The German Textiles Working Group conducted a health assessment of various optical brightening agents following concerns of potential health risks to the public. It was found that there is a general lack of information on toxicity and a need for studies into dermal absorption and the release of these substances from clothes. While it has not been shown to negatively affect health, it has also not been proven safe.

Most OBAs are not readily biodegradable, so chemicals remain in wastewater for long periods of time, negatively affecting water quality and animal and plant life. It is assumed that the substances accumulate in sediment or sludge, leading to high concentrations.
In wastewater, OBAs can also leach into groundwater, streams, and lakes. Since fluorescence is easy to detect, optical brightener monitoring is an emerging technique to quickly and cost-effectivley detect the contamination of stormwater by sanitary wastewater.

REACH is the new European Union regulation which aims to improve human health and the environment through better and earlier identification of the properties of chemical substances. REACH stands for Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemical substances. REACH contains provisions to reduce the use of what are called “high volume production” chemicals. These are defined as chemicals having annual production and/or importation volumes above 1 million pounds. It is assumed that high volume production is a proxy for high exposure; in addition, large releases of low toxicity substances such as salts do cause environmental harm due to the sheer volume of the substance.
Much of the impact from optical brighteners comes in the form of large releases of low toxicity substances. A number of these optical brighteners are listed as high and low production volume substances and so will be subject to REACH. For example, C.I. Fluorescent Brightener 220 is listed as a high production volume chemical.

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Two Sisters on a Mission.

Patty and Leigh Anne founded this company to make the whole world safer while making our personal environments more beautiful.

After forming O Ecotextiles in 2004, they began a world-wide search for manufacturing partners interested in a cradle-to-cradle process of creating no-impact, perfectly safe, incredibly luxurious fabrics.

They began working with people around the world: Romanian farmers who dew- or field-ret hemp stalks; a Japanese mill owner committed to “green” processes, even new methods such as using ozone to bleach fabric; a 100-year-old Italian mill that produces no wastewater; a Chilean mill shifting to entirely green processes; an Italian dye house that produces biodegradable, heavy-metal free textiles.